Chicago moms choose laughter in crazy parenting journey

By Marianne Walsh

Member of the Chicago Parent Blog Network

9/11/13 9:41 AM

I have always believed that the best by-product of motherhood is
laughter. Meeting disappointments, diagnoses, and disasters with a
sense of humor has sustained me more often than not. Occasionally,
I do get myself in trouble with the more serious mom crowd because
gravity is very difficult for me. While I typically say the exact
wrong thing at the exact wrong time, these experiences have taught
me a lesson about who I want to walk alongside during this crazy
journey of motherhood.

Chicago Parent contributor, Sheila
Quirk, has spoken often about her life in the wake of losing
her daughter, Donna, to cancer. Sheila, despite everything, chooses
hope. In spending time with this remarkable mother, I also noticed
that Sheila chooses something else: laughter. Whether I'm making
fun of her perfect pores or asking ridiculously stupid questions,
Sheila has not only mastered hope, but humor. It is a remarkable
testament to her strength and character.

Then there is Deb, local neighborhood mom and the person I most
want sitting next to me on the bus when I inadvertently volunteer
to chaperone a field trip. Deb, like most moms, has her own
struggles and challenges, but each and every day, Deb chooses
laughter. For example, when Deb's son swallowed a quarter and
required X-rays and constant bathroom surveillance and monitoring,
Deb posted this as her Facebook profile picture for a week:

Then there were the standard first day of school photos for her
children:

And naturally, Deb had to include one more:

When a less-than-stellar note came home from school, instead of
wallowing in despair and assigning heavy significance to it, Deb
dared you to not laugh at her bad day:

"Ben did not cooperate at all today. He kept sticking his
hands inside his pants."

These are the kinds of moms with whom I love learning and
laughing. With all the worries and fears that can cause us to stay
up and Google all night, it is critical that by morning, there is
at least one friend who will slap you upside the head, call you a
loon, and threaten to cancel your internet connection.

Mom friends who laugh. They are so very important.

Find one today.

Marianne is mother of three sons and the wife of a southside Irish fireman. She has learned that sometimes you're just too dumb to know what makes you happy. She blogs regularly at We Band of Mothers (webandofmothers.com) and curses with even greater frequency. Her material is written for the imperfect, the imprudent, and the impatient mothers who know that all this stuff is really very funny if you just give it a minute.